46 - Stealing colours from images, is there a format painter in Adobe InDesign?

Hi there, in this video we're going to look at using the Eyedropper tool. We've stolen a color over there, and put it into our box. We've stolen a color from this, that matches exactly. We've also stolen this Sub Heading font, and color, and size and reused that a couple of times. Completely bypassing the complex Paragraph Styles. A nice, quick, easy way. We love the Eyedropper tool. Let's go and do it.

First thing is, let's open up our exercise file. So go to 'File', 'Open'. We're going to use one in our 'InDesign Exercise Files', there's one called "Eyedropper Tool', open it up. A couple of things we can do with the Eyedropper. One is, we can steal colors from images. We kind of did this with logos earlier. So with this box selected here, grab my Eyedropper tool. Now, we don't want the 'Color Theme Tool' at this stage, we want to grab the 'Eyedropper Tool' which is underneath. So hold down on the 'Color Theme Tool' and then select 'Eyedropper Tool'.

What we can do is, make sure this is selected first with the 'Black Arrow'. Then just pick a color from here, that one. If this doesn't work, it has actually worked, if I click off, and click in the background, it's actually pulled it for the 'Stroke'. The reason it did that is, if I had it selected, grab my Eyedropper tool, it's because down here, my 'Stroke' is at the front. So, InDesign thinks I mean to put it there. So what I can do now is, I can click this double arrow, which switches it around, or before I do it, which is probably more useful-- I'm 'undo'ing it till it's back to normal - is I'm going to bring the 'Fill' to the front. So that's at the front there now. So, in InDesign, I mean, you, the 'Fill' and I'm going to pick a color, this one.

So with this 'Black Arrow', click on this guy, grab the Eyedropper tool. Make sure the 'Fill's in front, that's what you want to work on. And I'm going to pull a color from this. Those are horrible colors, very close to each other. So I'm going to pick a different one, maybe a red from in here.

Another thing we can do with the Eyedropper, is using Fonts. We looked at Paragraph Styles earlier on, which is really cool, but say you're not using Paragraph Styles, you're just working on something small, a little flyer, you don't need all that extra level of complexity with styles. So what you're going to do is, highlight the Sub Heading here-- this guy, and I want to steal this. So grab the Eyedropper tool, and say, I want you. Which is really cool. Gets even better because I don't have to then select this text here and try and do it again. The cursor has changed, so it's kind of full of that style now. So I can keep using it, watch this. Highlight you, highlight you, and I can keep going through and doing this. So Eyedropper tool is great for stealing both colors and stealing fonts and sizes in colors.

One last use, if I go off my Black Arrow and back to the Eyedropper tool, that kind of gets rid of that thing that I had. Actually, I want to grab the Type tool, highlight this text here. Grab the Eyedropper tool, and I want to steal this color here, brown. Highlight this text again with the Type tool, grab the Eyedropper tool, and I want to steal the red. Great, so the Eyedropper tool can be used for stealing colors and fonts. That will be it for this video. Let's go and do the next one.